The Man in the Mirror
by Isis 01
Summary: In order to be forgiven you must first learn to forgive yourself. For Heero the path to change isn’t easy, but changes most take place if he is ever to redeem himself in her eyes again. 1xR


**Disclaimer: **I don't own any of it, just the plot.

**Warning:** Ok, first of all let me warn you that this is like nothing I've ever done before. I am not sure if you'll like it. This chapter's completely Heero-centric. I wanted to do something that would center on Heero's feelings; you know, how he coped with his past and his fears. I'm not sure if I was able to pull it off, you'll be the judges of that. It's just that, I first started this story back in December, and it's changed so much from the original product that, well, not even I know for sure which is it's main theme. Either way, I hope you like this chapter. There's just another chapter after this and then I'm done. The next chapter is actually much more lighter than this one. Relena, Duo and all the others will be there and, yes, there will me fluff.

**RedLion2: **Believe it or not, you, my friend, were the inspiration for this story. As I said, I started this a long time ago, after I had read a message you sent me or something. Throughout all those months I went missing you were the only one that kept cheering me on and insisting on how my writing was good. You don't know how much that means to me. A thousand thank yous.

So...Red, this one's for you.

**Chiban-chan:** with whom I haven't talked in so long. Chan, you also have a saying in this. Thanks for saying that my stories inspired you, it means a lot to me.

Do Enjoy.

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**The Man in the Mirror**

By Isis 01

_Are you lost?_

…_yeah, I've been lost all my life._

_Oh…I'm sorry. I'm not lost. I'm walking Mary…_

_That boy? He's too soft for Operation Meteor. This is war! Forget compassion. He's not ready to fight._

_You're wrong. I'll make him the best pilot we've ever had…_

**Chapter 1: Crumbling under the Mask**

He woke up with a strangled gasp, immediately sitting upright between his tangled sheets, a prickle of sweat trickling down his handsome face. A frustrated grunt echoed throughout the darkened room. A big, calloused hand came up to massage his nose's bridge, trying his best to calm down his nerves.

He had been having that dream again, the one about the little girl; he had dreamed of what she had said to him, and how her end had arrived. War had taken another innocent victim that day, and it had not passed unnoticed by his heart.

His arms trembled as he struggled to lift himself off his bed; that dream always left him drained.

He stumbled through his room in the night's darkness; holding onto his desk like a lifeline when he reached it. No noise was emitted as he opened the nearest drawer and reached into it, wrapping a strong hand around a small cigarette box. He then reached into his sweatpants' pocket, his hand coming out with a small lighter in it.

The first drag felt like heaven to him. He let the sweet feeling and smell of the tobacco invade his senses, giving him a feel of relaxation and abandon. Taking him away from all the pains of life, if only for just a moment.

Smoking, it was a bad habit he had picked up after the wars, when the harshness of real life and its consequences had finally taken their toll.

Glancing up, he caught a pair of stoic dark blue eyes looking back at him. Even in the pitch black darkness that surrounded him he was perfectly able to see the man standing in front of him; the blue eyes glinted with a hidden sorrow, and the manly, hardened features denoted a deep sadness. He, the man looking back at him, he tried to hide them. He did his best to hide those heart-wrenching emotions. And most of the time he _was _successful but, if there was one person that could see through his façade…well that would be himself.

His reflection blinked in an effort to scare the thoughts and the grogginess of sleep away.

In the mirror his reflection glared back at him, looking blue in the moonlight that managed to enter through the apartment's small windows.

He was only clad in his grey sweatpants, his bare chest shining in all its glory under the Lady Moon's accusing light. His brown hair, which appeared black in the room's darkness, was still as unruffled as ever, and it almost managed to hide his Prussian eyes from sight.

And what special eyes they were, those Prussian orbs: a most peculiar tone of blue, the color the sky takes at night, the dark tone of the ocean's very depths. But it wasn't only their color that was special; those two eyes were unique, but not because of their shape, size, color—no, they were unique because of what lay hidden in them.

An entire world of deaths, secrets, suffering, and missions lay behind those glinting mirrors of blue. Those eyes had been the silent witnesses of thousands of crimes to humanity. They had contemplated the horrors that his own hands had committed as he wove his way through war, as he methodically killed his enemies without so much of the blink of an eye, and as he lost his emotions.

It hadn't been fair; he had been far too young when the burden of becoming the Perfect Soldier had been set upon him. He had been but a little boy with no choice whatsoever, with no path in life to follow. Lost due to the casualties of war, alone in a world so big and mean at such a young age, when he was too innocent and inexperienced to comprehend humanity's cruelty, to comprehend the terrible consequences of his actions.

And yet at an age so young he had seen things that most people never saw in their entire lives. He had witnessed the massacres first-hand; had even taken part in them, because he hadn't known any better.

A little boy who had seen and done things that would haunt him forever, things that had slowly woven his path as he grew, things that had slowly transformed him into what he would later become: a Perfect Soldier, one who appeared to have no emotions or feelings, one who completed his mission no matter the cost, no matter what he felt.

But it had all been a mask, a façade he had unconsciously made in order to protect what little was left of his innocence and humanity.

Because the truth was that he was still very much that same innocent, scared boy. He was still that kind-hearted young person; had always been. He had just been hiding; hiding behind a gruff mask of death and coldness.

And, like with every other mask, the real face is still there, hiding behind the protective outer-core. How many times had he woken up from a nightmare-filled slumber, only to find tear-streaks still fresh on his face?

The thing is, what happens when the mask has been there for so long that you can no longer recognize which is the mask, and which is the face? What happens when the mask has molded with the face, in such perfect precision, that the original product can no longer be rescued?

That was the million-dollar question.

In front of him, the man in the mirror looked back with sorrowful eyes, taunting him. Feeling disgusted with himself and his self-pity, he threw his cigarette at the floor and harshly stepped on it with his bare foot, efficiently extinguishing the butt's last trills of smoke.

The burning in his sole reminded him that he was still very much alive. Unfortunately.

He quietly moved through his solitary apartment, methodically evading the few pieces of furniture he kept. He entered the small kitchen, which he seldom used—except when it came to making coffee—and turned on the lights, his eyes barely flinching at the bulb's brightness.

The kitchenette smelled of smoke and cheap coffee. Just like he did.

It wasn't long before he had a steaming cup of dark coffee in his hands. No random thoughts crossed his mind as he inched his lips to taste the dark liquid. He resisted the urge to wince, it tasted horrendous.

He was about to hurl the cup into the sink when a patch of paper on the coffee table caught his attention.

Except that it wasn't an ordinary paper; his mind remembered only too well the image that hid on the other side.

The paper's edges were scratched and ill treated, and a little bit brown from all the cigarette smoke it was constantly exposed to. He turned it around with his able fingers, treating the little abused paper with odd care, and was presented with his favorite sight.

The picture was that of a young woman. Peachy skin that contrasted perfectly with sky-blue eyes and silky golden hair; she was drop-dead gorgeous. The beautiful smile in her face denoted her happiness at that particular moment, her eyes seemed to sparkle with glee, and her hair appeared to fly in all directions as she had surely been moving when the photo was taken; it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime shots, a picture so perfect and spontaneous that you could almost feel the life coming out of it.

The paper was in terrible shape. That being due to the countless times the photo had been grabbed, touched, felt, and handled. You could even still see his fingerprints plastered on it from the last time he had picked it up.

He took the photo everywhere with him, mostly keeping it in the security of his wallet's transparent plastic patch. It made miracles in calming him when he was most agitated; it was like an instant sedative.

When his nightmares attacked him, whenever those heart-wrenching thoughts plagued his mind, he would take her picture out and look at it, sometimes for hours, calming his troubled mind with her image.

It was, in his opinion, the best birthday gift he had ever received. Well, and the only one he had ever received too.

How had Duo managed to learn his birth date was beyond him. Heero himself had had trouble finding that one out; it had taken him a couple of months of avid research among Dr. J's endless documents and papers.

But about Duo learning his birthday…well he wasn't exactly complaining. He had actually been pleasantly surprised when he had picked up the cheery birthday card at his door's foot, and even more so when he had opened it up to find a beautiful picture of the Peacecraft princess tucked inside.

Obviously, Duo hadn't believed him when he had purposefully denied his feelings for her.

With amazing care, a strong, tanned finger swept across the picture's surface, caressing her image with such a gentle and real care that it was as if he were actually touching her. To him it was. It was the closest he would ever get to actually touching her face.

A sad, melancholic smile spread across his features. She would always be off his league.

Feeling the unwelcome self-pity surge within him again he gently tucked the picture into his sweatpants' pocket and exited the kitchen. Maybe now that he'd calmed himself down he would be able to get some sleep. At least for a few hours.

He was already half-way to his bedroom when he noticed it. A tiny red light blinking continuously among the room's darkness. He realized it was his answering machine, indicating him that he had, indeed, a new voice message.

Heero approached it without hesitation. It ought to be one of Duo's "spontaneous" messages.

He couldn't help the smile that threatened to break through his normally straight lips.

Even though he often complained about his friend's constantly annoying presence, deep inside he really liked the brown-haired man. His cheerful and caring personality had the gift to propagate the feeling to anyone who happened to be near.

As he reached for the blinking button he remembered his friend's last message. It had been one of those special reports that he sent Heero every other week. Special reports that consisted, of all things, of Relena Peacecraft's whereabouts and doings.

According to Duo on the last message, Relena had had a very busy last week, with lots of conferences and meetings, and by the end of it she had been absolutely exhausted, so much so that she had decided to take a brake during the entire following week. This had made Hilde immensely happy, who, as the golden-haired girl's best friend, had insisted in taking a break together with her.

As a result, Hilde had been staying over at Relena's big country house the whole week, with Duo dropping in almost every evening after work. He had said that Relena's mood had improved tremendously as of late, and that her smiles filled the house more frequently now.

Heero's heart had smiled at that.

Duo's weekly "reports" had started out as simple as they could get, just like that, out of the blue.

It had seemed weird at first, but in no time he had grown accustomed to Duo's lengthy reports, and it hadn't been long before he had started to grow dependant on the security that his friend's weekly call provided.

From the senators and important men Relena had meetings with, to the disgusting, burnt eggs she had had for breakfast and the hilariously funny face she had made when she had tasted them. The new shoes she had gotten at the mall, the book she was currently reading, what her famous hot chocolate tasted like, her favorite song, her shower singing abilities, her Sunday-morning cooking antics. They were all worth mentioning, in Duo's opinion.

Heero gently pushed the blinking button, expecting to hear Duo's voice fill his living room in a few seconds. Some static noises were heard before the voice message started. It wasn't Duo. Far from it, actually.

A heavy lump in Heero's chest went reeling the moment he recognized the voice. It was impossible to mistake that voice.

It was sweet, feminine, and alluring, all at the same time. It was the voice that had been haunting him, every single day, since he had first heard it, four years from now, at the shore of a lonely beach.

Heero unconsciously held his breath.

"_Uh… hi Heero". _She sounded unsure and nervous, but she continued.

"_It's been awhile since we last talked. I hope you're doing fine,"_ then she chuckled, destroying the nervous atmosphere she had created, _"ignore that, knowing you, you're probably better than fine". _

"_Duo said you've been doing great at Preventers, and that you got a new apartment. I'm glad to hear that", _something like that coming from someone else, it would have been a blatant lie, but not in her case.

You could actually hear the real honesty and the smile she had on when she had said that.

She gave another chuckle, a nervous one, and continued, _"But listen I…I didn't call just to congratulate you. We're…we're actually having a nice get-together tomorrow, at my house, starting at sometime earlier than noon"_

"_The whole gang's going to be here, even Wufei", _she chuckled again, giving away her tangible nervousness, _"and we were…I-I mean I was hoping that…maybe you could come. I mean, it would be really nice to see you again, and everyone would be very glad to have you back. To see the whole gang together again you know?"_

He could hear her tortured sigh echo on the walls of his apartment, _"We miss you Heero. I know you were never very wild about us but…we all miss you, we really do and…" _

Relena seemed to have trouble with voicing her thoughts, which was all very strange, seeing as she was the Vice Foreign Minister and all, and she literally used words to survive.

Heero strained his ears even more, not wanting to miss a single beat of the one-sided conversation.

"…_I miss you too" _He was barely aware of the blood pounding painfully in his head.

"_I-I know you probably won't come, and I won't blame you for it. None of us will. I just thought you should know that we haven't forgotten you."_

"_Take care Heero"_

The recording ended as abruptly as it had started, sending the entire apartment into an eerie silence while Heero's pulse beat in an accelerated pace. His mind was in a jam, so many were the things that plagued his mind.

Failing to grasp all the feelings and emotions that were uncommonly circulating around his head, Heero managed to stumble all the way back to his bedroom, his blue orbs swinging in confusion and uncertainty. In quick, unmeasured strides he made it to his desk and opened the drawer without hesitation, rapidly reaching for his trusty pack of cigarettes.

With unusually shaking hands he struggled to make the lighter work. He tried once, twice; the stupid lighter wouldn't light up!

It was then that he happened to look up, feeling his insides contorting as he looked into the mirror and at his reflection.

It was pathetic. _He_ was pathetic. What would Relena think if she saw him like that?

Hunched over his cigarettes, anxiously desperate to lit one on: it was one of the most pathetic images he had ever beheld. What had the perfect soldier come to? To smoke his lungs off whenever he felt the least bit agitated?

It was a shame; a shame that he had come to retort to this means of abandon. It was a weakness.

The pack of cigarettes hit the wall with an amazing force, leaving no doubt as to the irreparable damage they had received. The lighter followed in the pack's footsteps soon enough.

Calloused hands grabbed the desk's edges in an attempt to stop the shaking.

His mind was finally suffering the consequences of the emotional crisis he had been living through for the past months. The post-war shock that thousands of common soldiers experienced every day had finally hit him, leaving him vulnerable and weak.

The night watched in silent contemplation as the once Perfect Soldier crumbled into the ground in a heave of desperation. His once strong body shook with spasms every time he tried to stand up, causing him to fall even harder to the floor. Defeated, he finally gave in.

He stayed there, crumbled over on his apartment's soft carpet.

The night started to roll by. After a short-while he noticed that small droplets of water had started to make their way across his cheeks. They were cold and almost unnoticeable and, when one of them reached his mouth, he realized they were salty.

It took him a while to realize that they were tears. Real tears. Heero Yuy, human prodigy, had forgotten how it felt to cry.

He did not sob. Did not cry in agony. Did not make noise. He just let the tears roll down.

Years ago, during his training, such an act would have provoked the consequence of a punishment. And not any ordinary punishment. Not one of those butt-slapping punishments that little kids received from their parents when they broke something.

No, Heero Yuy had never received one of those.

One hour with the whip, no water or food for two days, no sleeping for half a week, and, if he was lucky, 100 push-ups. Those had been the punishments Heero had received in a weekly basis for the most of his childhood and part of his adolescence. Years and years of endless suffering that he would never be able to forget.

He looked at the moon out his window.

But, those times were over. They had ended the moment he had arrived on Earth, and now, four years later, he was an adult. There were no more people to control him, no one to order him around. He was his own boss.

So why couldn't he get what he wanted? Why couldn't he throw his past out the window and form a new future? Another million-dollar question.

The war, the revolution, all of that was over. He was no longer a soldier. He did not have the obligation to kill anymore. Then why couldn't he forget that and get on with his life?

_In order to be forgiven you must first learn to forgive yourself. _

For some reason that single piece of advice suddenly entered his mind. Trowa had mentioned it to him one day, during one of their routine missions. He had just said it, out of the blue, almost as if he had been talking to himself.

But Heero knew he hadn't been talking alone, and that that message had been meant for him.

"In order to be forgiven you must first learn to forgive yourself" the words gently rolled out of his mouth like a mantra, filling his chest with an odd feeling of hope and calm as the darkness around him seemed to grow bigger.

He fell into a deep sleep, and he dreamed.

He dreamed of the little girl, but this time there weren't any mobile suits randomly falling on residential houses, nor was there any mission for him to complete.

_It was just the little girl, standing in the middle of a green field before him, looking as innocent and merry as she had when he had met her that one time. Mary, the small retriever puppy, stood calmly at her owner's side._

_The puppy suddenly barked and promptly ran towards him. The little girl stood her ground, smiling with glee as Mary jumped up and down on his legs, begging for attention._

_To say he was dumbfounded was an understatement. _

_After a couple of moments he finally relented and knelt down, picking the soft puppy by the belly with surprisingly unsure hands. The puppy barked once more and licked one of his hands. _

"_Wha—", bewildered and confused, he looked around. There was only the field of grass; there was no sky, only a white background. He'd never been to such a place before. _

"_What is this place? Wh-what am I doing here?" he asked the little girl, who stood smiling before him, her small hands clasped behind her white summer-dress_

"_I was about to ask you the same question", she said, beaming at him._

_He just stared at her. Honestly, he had no idea what he was doing here. _

_She seemed to guess as much, as she closed her yes and giggled. The moment she did so, his heart started to pound. _

_Heero frowned. There was something about her laugh that didn't exactly fit—for some reason, he suddenly noticed her hair. It was long and smooth, and it had that oh so familiar golden shade to it. His brows furrowed. How could that be…? _

_If there was one episode in his life that he remembered clearly, it was that one encounter with the little girl._

_And throughout all those dreams and nightmares that her death had hunted him with, her hair had never been that long and—and smooth. In fact, if he remembered well, her hair had been more like curly and really thick._

_Soft eyes the color of the ocean caught his in a gaze, looking at him with that all-knowing look, and there was a sheepish tug to her lips. Pink, perfect lips…_

_Something lurched around in his stomach as realization dawned on him. But he still couldn't fathom it as a fact; it just didn't make sense…_

_She laughed again, tossing her head to the white sky above her. Her voice…it wasn't the voice of the little girl that he'd met that day on that lonely colony. It was the voice of a girl all right, but it wasn't that of the one that had died by his hands on that day, so long ago. _

_She stopped laughing and took a step towards him, looking up to him through her long, inky lashes. _

_Inwardly, he gasped. This wasn't Mary's owner anymore. Looking down at the smiling girl before him, he would have known those endless blue eyes anywhere, that smile, that perfect bone structure that was irrevocably hers. _

_This dream just kept getting more and more strange. _

_She giggled again, "You're so cute when you're confused"_

_He swallowed, hard. Faintly, he felt a prickle of heat trail up his neck. _

_He had never met her in this form before. She had been 15 the first time he had met her, quite different from the 9 year old persona that was currently batting her eyelashes at him. But still, whatever the age, she was still very much Relena. _

"_B-but how…I don't understand" Heero said, tightening his hold over Mary as the excited puppy jumped in his arms. _

_She laughed again, small hands going up to her white hat in an effort to keep it on her head. Then she looked at him again, making a low tsk, tsk noise as she shook her head. _

"_You're not very good at interpreting dreams are you?" she asked, lacing her hands behind her in an innocent pose. _

"_I ah…" needless to say, he had never very good at interpreting _anything_, besides maps and secret codes, that is. _

_So he shook his head._

_Little Relena sighed and looked heavenward, as if she were asking for divine illumination. Then she looked at him again, hands resting on her hips, and cocked her head at him, as if she were waiting for him to do something. Her little girl antics were actually quite entertaining. _

_She was…cute. _

"_Of course I am, what would make you think otherwise?" she retorted, pouting at him as if he had just offended her. _

_Great, now she could also read his mind._

_She sighed in frustration again. "Heero, this _**is**_ your mind. Your_ _subconscious is the one that decides what happens; and in reality I'm not Relena"_

_He raised one eyebrow at that. Oh right, she was not Relena, and _**he**_ liked to use skirts. Sure. _

_She grunted in frustration and slapped her forehead lightly. "I'm being serious here"_

"_Sorry, go on"_

_To his disappointment, she didn't. She looked at the white sky for a moment, and then, as if she had taken an important decision, sat herself by his feet in a flurry of white cotton and golden locks. _

_She touched his legs in a silent message. Her soft touch sent drills of electricity all throughout his body. Wordlessly, he knelt and tucked his long legs beneath him._

_They stayed like that for what seemed like hours, but was actually just a moment, when she turned to him. _

_His eyes grew wide in surprise and, perhaps, a little bit of disappointment. Seated next to him was no longer the cute 9 year old Relena, but the owner of the puppy that he still held in his arms. _

"_You never answered my question" she said, giving him a smile that couldn't in any way be compared to Relena's, but that was still very bright and nice in its own. _

"_Huh?"_

_Her smile didn't waver. "Why did you come here?"_

_He thought over the question for a moment, finding odd comfort in the feel of the warm puppy tucked in the circle of his arms. _

"_I want to be forgiven" he said finally, feeling as vulnerable as the puppy he held as his subconscious voiced his soul's wish._

"_By whom?" she asked, but she didn't give him timeto answer. _

"_We never held a grudge against you" she stated, not missing a single beat, and surprising him with her response. _

_Heero stared at her, confused beyond belief. We? Who was she talking about—?_

_He realized, with a sad heart, that she was talking, not only about her, but about all the other victims whose lives he had taken away. All of them. Hundreds of men and women whose life and freedom he had taken away with the single pull of a trigger. _

"_Don't feel bad", she laid a small hand on his arm, "it wasn't your fault"_

"_What? It wasn't—it wasn't my fault? Of course it was!" Heero almost screamed, his soul slowly dying as anguish and guilt consumed him. Of course it was his fault. Who else's would it be? _

"_No Heero, it wasn't!" he was vaguely aware of the distinctive change of voice in the person sitting next to him, "it was a war Heero, a war!"_

_But Heero couldn't hear, he was in too deep, falling farther into his hole of nothingness with each tear that fell from his cheeks. Lives. So many lives could have been spared if he had controlled himself, had those stupid scientists left him to die in the streets then he wouldn't have killed so many people._

_He had believed himself invincible, with his abilities and status of perfection, his ego had grown to immense proportions, even going as far as believing at some point that he could destroy the worl—_

"_Stop it! Look at me Heero, look at me!" a pair of small hands took hold of his face and roughly turned it so that he was facing her eyes again. Those eyes… of the utmost beautiful tones of blue and green, captivating and impossibly sincere, they left no doubt as to what she was feeling, ever. And now, as they swam with compassion and forgiveness, complete forgiveness, he didn't believe he had ever felt so grateful. _

"_It was a war Heero", her voice held that understanding, soothing tone, as if she were talking to a child, even though she herself looked like a child at the moment, "a horrible, cruel war were we were all victims"_

_Soothing his soul with a gentle touch to his head, he felt her brush her fingers against his hand a moment before she intertwined their fingers, and he was silently surprised as he realized that her hand no longer felt as small as before._

_Struggling against the blurry vision that his tears caused, he felt a no small amount of surprise as his eyes focused on the person before him. It wasn't that her hand was bigger; it was that his hand was smaller._

_It was rough and a little bit calloused, and it still had that natural tan to it; it was most definitely his. It just felt so strange to suddenly have his body all small and frail again. _

_That's why he was crying. He was that little, innocent boy again._

"_She never held a grudge against you Heero; the little girl forgave you a long time ago. They all did Heero, they all did" her soft, little fingers did miracles in stopping his tears._

"_They did?" he asked through his blurry vision._

_She nodded, smiling. "Yes Heero, they did. They all did"_

"_So", he heard her voice say as darkness started to engulf his vision, "forgive yourself already Heero"_

"_It's time you moved on"_

Still sleeping, and still crumbled over the carpet, a sudden, big breath was released off his chest, as if a heavy, overwhelming burden had just been taken off.

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End of the first chapter. Very weird, I know. Personally, I wasn't too sure about publishing it or not, but since I've been gone for so long, well, I figured people would start to think I was dead.

The dream sequence was made at the last moment, without the least bit of planning, it just suddenly came out. So, I decided to follow my heart and let my hands do the magic. I'm very nervous about this, and I really hope you like it. Most of all, I hope you'll understand it. The dream's something like a representation: Little Relena is like his hope, what he wishes for. She is there to console him and to love him.The little girl represents all the victims, and she's the one to make him understand that no one ever held a grudge against him. The puppy represents his vulnerability; Heero protects it, because he doesn't want anyone to know just how fragile and vulnerable he feels.

At the end of the dream he turns into a little boy, because his soul wants that innocence back, and the boy's forgiveness if the first path to the freedom of his soul. Take note that all of this happens subconciously.

Oh, and the first words in italics are taken directly from the Endless Waltz Manga, don't own it. Just a copy.

Questions, comments, flames, any kind of criticism, I'm open for it. I want to know what you thought about this story, and if you hated it, well, do tell. That way I won't ever do anything like this again, and you'll spare me the embarrassment.

Anyways, **do review.**


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